


Princess of Exy

by hazelbeewitched



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Family, Gen, Secrets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-08-16 10:52:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8099374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazelbeewitched/pseuds/hazelbeewitched
Summary: Kayleigh Day had known about the true Moriyama family business since Exy grew to be more than just a project. She'd figured she'd be safe with Tetsuji, master of the second-born family, with no real power and no significant danger, but when she got pregnant she got worried. There was no way to hide her child from the growing menace the Ravens were slowly becoming - or was there? Kayleigh's letter to Tetsuji might not have been as revealing as Neil thought....





	1. Moira

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of an alternate ending story that starts right after winter break in The King's Men.

Moira lifted her hands in front of her face and forced herself to look. Everything was a distant haze except the roar of hunger in her stomach. Her eyes focused, but her consciousness was elsewhere, forced out and away from a body that didn’t have enough energy to take note of stray sensations.

Her hands were shaking. She flexed, feeling the muscles in her wrist contract, but her fingers wouldn’t stay still. She dropped her hands and they picked up a rhythm, tapping mindlessly on her thighs. She was breathing too fast. Her gaze flicked around the room. Moira couldn’t tell if her racing pulse was from nerves or the restless anxiety that this type of hunger brought.

It didn’t make any sense, but Moira had long ago stopped expecting her body to make sense. For breakfast she’d had eggs at an airport café, and while that had been hours ago, it should have satisfied her for much longer than it did. It was only ten thirty, but her stomach growled, and her shoulders twitched violently to distract from the feeling. She was lightheaded and a little dizzy, and she knew that if she got up from the armchair too fast she might lose her balance.

She didn’t have enough energy to feel any frustration, any anger or dismay at how unfair everything was. She’d already had that panic attack multiple times on the plane. It was just as well – any minute the coach would return, and she didn’t have the time to struggle with self-pity.

The boy on the couch was watching her without watching her, had been since she came in, concealing his glances poorly as he shifted his attention from the TV to his notes. The game on the TV played on, and Moira struggled to keep the background noise from derailing her thoughts. Her mind was unsteady as it was. She would have to ignore the boy, denying his presence until she forgot he was even there.

 _It’s so easy,_ she realized after a minute and she’d managed to put the athlete completely out of her mind. A nervous survey of the room had revealed him again, and she couldn’t help but wonder. She knew who he was; she knew all the players on this team. Neil Josten had piercing blue eyes and bandages on his face, but he slipped from her memory with ease.

She gave a breathy chuckle, but stopped when she realized she was doing it.

“What?” the boy asked. He was small, Moira realized, and stared at his knees instead of his face. She had a hard time focusing on faces when she was feeling like this.

A beat later she registered his query, but it had yet to process in her mind before she said, “What?” He didn’t respond, but Moira read the questions in his expression.

 _Oh, God,_ Moira thought suddenly. A wave of nausea rolled through her chest – but no, it wasn’t nausea, couldn’t have been. She didn’t have anything in her system to cause nausea. A violent shiver worked through her shoulders, her chest tightening, and for the first time since she’d taken a seat she glanced at Tierney in the corner, watching her. Tierney caught her gaze and lifted her chin in silent question.

Moira’s vision tunneled on Tierney’s face. Her stomach gave another vicious rumble and she pressed her hands under her knees, sitting on them to stop shaking. The coach had been away too long; Kevin wasn’t coming. She’d crossed an ocean and risked discovery for nothing. Her right shoulder began to ache from how she twisted it, but she didn’t want to move. Tierney raised her eyebrows, leaning forward in a subtle ready position that Moira had only started recognizing recently. Moira could call it off right then, one shake of her head to take them back to the airport and back to Ireland where she could regret this dreadful decision in safety, where she was supposed to be.

Neil Josten picked up on her line of sight and looked at Tierney, too. Moira didn’t know what he saw in the bodyguard, if he guessed Tierney’s true purpose, but Moira thought he was probably close. The Foxes of Palmetto State were alike in that they all had some sort of tragic backstory; even the most privileged of them ought to be able to distinguish a bodyguard in disguise.

 _Stay on topic,_ Moira snapped at herself. She’d forgotten that she was staring at Tierney, and Tierney was expecting and answer. Moira took a deep breath, then another. The air didn’t seem to make it to her lungs all the way. Panic surged, and with the hazy state she was in Moira didn’t think she could stop it.

 _Oh, God,_ she thought again. She was going to cry. Kevin wasn’t coming and she’d be captured by the Moriyamas without ever seeing his face in person. She’d never see him play live, never hear his voice in person, never meet the man her mother had raised a world away. He’d never know about her, about Grandma and Grandpa, about how she’d grown up watching him in the limelight. He’d never be able to chastise her for doing something as reckless as risking a ruthless crime syndicate finding out about her existence just to meet him for the first time.

Footsteps ricocheted through the hall. It was impossible, but it startled Moira into averting her eyes from Tierney. The time for a decision had passed; three silhouettes were fast approaching.

Moira rocketed to her feet, shoving the dizziness aside as unhelpful. She spared a look to Tierney and gave a tight nod before focusing on the men approaching.

When she saw him, she couldn’t hold back a gasp.

Moira knew what he looked like. She’d seen his pictures a thousand times, watched countless interviews, viewed every recording of every one of his games. She could’ve described him to anybody – short, dark black hair, bright green eyes. She knew what he looked like in any type of lighting, knew all the angles of his face as if she’d sculpted them herself.

But he was so … _different,_ in person. Shorter than she realized – they were maybe the same height, in fact – and the absolute lack of color in his face made the ugly number ‘2’ tattooed on his cheek stand out darkly like a blemish. He was in his uniform, bulky under so much padding – armor, they called it – and his helmet hung from his fingertips, his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat.

Moira’s fingers twitched. She wasn’t sure if she was even breathing, but the heartbeat pounding in her ears reminded her. She took a step forward – the closest to him she’d ever been – and offered her hand.

“Hi,” she said, breathless and weightless and it was truly a miracle that gravity hadn’t given up on her ages ago. “My name is Moira Day, and I’m your sister.”


	2. Neil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will readily admit that this chapter sucks. I wrote it in a hurry based off old notes I took, because when I was halfway finished with it the last time, my flash drive somehow deleted the file. But I wanted to get this finished as soon as I could because it was taking so long, so here. It sucks. Enjoy <3

It wasn’t possible.

Something in Neil’s head was ringing, a faint sound with no beginning or end. Everything was happening all at once – there was no room in his head, still recovering from his stint at Evermore, to process all the things that had just occurred. He had just managed forced himself to focus back on the UT game after what Andrew had said to him on the court when this shaky, nervous Irish girl was led in by Wymack and sat across from Neil, looking everywhere but at him.

It wasn’t possible. Nothing about her – not her pale face, her green eyes, the hard press of her lips that was way too easy for Neil to read – none of it was possible.

Neil hadn’t been alive when Kevin was born and had no first-hand knowledge, but a lifetime of borderline stalking gave him a fairly accurate knowledge of every moment of Kevin’s life. When the press found out that Kevin’s mother Kayleigh was pregnant, it was the cause of an uproar. Reporters hounded her for details about the pregnancy, desperate to know everything – the baby’s gender and due date, Kayleigh’s plans for raising a kid around her life as the co-creator of Exy, whether Kayleigh would even continue playing the sport now that she had a child to raise. Kayleigh had tried to fend off bloodthirsty news people as best as she could, even retiring to her homeland of Ireland for as much solitude as she could get, but she was too famous to disappear quietly. They had hardly been able to keep cameras out of the room when Kevin was born, and he and his mother were in public view ever since.

There was no way Kevin could have a sibling. Never mind that Moira looked exactly like Kevin; Kayleigh couldn’t have kept a second child a secret.

Neil surveyed the faces in the room, every nerve in his body screaming that this had to be some kind of trap. Andrew was impassive as usual, and Kevin’s jaw was unhinged, his whole body slack as he stared at Moira. The two men were at odds, and Neil didn’t know what to think. What _could_ he think, with such a ridiculous prospect on the table?

Though from the look on Wymack’s face, he had already heard Moira’s claim, but Neil couldn’t read the meaning behind the older man’s expression. Wymack looked between Kevin and Moira, arms crossed, but standing a step back to referee.

When Kevin did nothing but gape, Moira’s arm drooped. She cast a look at Wymack. “You didn’t tell him?”

Wymack worked his jaw before replying, “I thought you were coming next week.”

“You knew?” Kevin’s voice was hardly a whisper, but it cracked all the same. Moira’s neck practically snapped as she twisted toward the sound. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Moira’s existence is a secret. We asked that nobody be told about this until we were in the States,” the woman in the corner said, her Irish accent much thicker than Moira’s. She was young, maybe in her late twenties, and her dark hair was buzzed to the scalp. Neil had noticed her right away. She lurked near the doorway, always surveying the room, but it was clear that her center of focus was Moira. The way she stood, her palms open and arms loose at her side, Neil guessed she was hiding weapons that could be easily accessed. “ _They_ shouldn’t even be here.”

She jerked her head to indicate Neil and Andrew. Andrew, for his part, only looked a little bored, but Neil knew better than to fall for his vacant expression. Neil watched Andrew survey the strangers, judging the threats they presented, and forced himself to keep his own thoughts from wandering to the conversation they’d just had on the court.

“Neil and Andrew need to know,” Wymack said. “They’re more involved with the Moriyamas than you realize.”

“Then they _definitely_ shouldn’t—”

“Tierney, shut the fuck up,” Moira snapped, and everything from her tone to the tight set of her shoulders reminded Neil viscerally of Kevin. The entire room paused, listening to the heat of her words, the most forceful thing about her so far. “We talked about this a million times. Just shut the fuck up.”

Tierney bristled, clenching and un-clenching her fists, but said nothing. Neil couldn’t see Moira’s expression, but her shoulders relaxed a little.

“I am a week early,” she admitted, dropping her hand when she realized that Kevin wasn’t going to take it. She continued, addressing only him, “That was a safety precaution. If your coach’s emails were being read, or if he was sharing them with anyone, then my little visit could have been compromised. And in the beginning, I was only planning on staying the weekend, watching your game, and going back home, but – I got a little greedy. I wanted the week. I was hoping he was going to fill you in right away, but I guess there’s no time like the present.”

There was a beat of silence, and Neil thanked his British mother and time spent in the United Kingdom when he was on the run, because Moira talked so fast and with so few pauses that an untrained ear might not have understood.

Finally, Kevin spoke, and his voice was hoarse. “Mom never had a second kid. There’s no way she could have – and if...”

Kevin slid his haggard gaze to Neil, and Neil remembered the note he’d found stashed in Kevin’s room at Evermore. If it was even possible for Kayleigh to have another, secret child, then her father could have also been Wymack. And if Moira knew it, then she could let the secret slip – a secret that Kevin had been sitting on for over a year and was no more interested in getting out.

Only, Moira had called Wymack ‘your coach’. That wasn’t something a long-lost daughter called a father. Neil suspected that if Moira posed any threats, they were not of the secret-spilling kind.

Moira began to tap a rhythm onto her legs, her fingers fast enough to disguise the jittering Neil had seen earlier. Neil had never met anyone so antsy before, nor someone so physically weak she could hold her hands in front of her face and watch them tremble. And without her facing him, without being able to see Kevin’s face mirrored in hers, he would never have given her a second glance.

“I understand that it’s hard to believe,” Moira said, in a tone so static that Neil could tell she had no patience at all – yet another one of Kevin’s subtle traits. “And I don’t think here is the place for it. We’re staying in a hotel near here, so maybe after your practice you could come over and we could talk things out, and I’ll explain everything. Or we could go out – you know, that might be better. We’ll go out for tea, somewhere nice and public.”

“Coffee,” Andrew said, his expression unchanging. Moira took a half-step back, as if surprised that he had spoken. Neil didn’t blame her. “We drink _coffee_ here.”

There was a pause, and Moira said, “That’s fine too.”

“Then it’s settled,” Andrew said. He grabbed the back of Kevin’s jersey and dragged him, not back onto the court, but to the locker rooms. He spared a hard look at Neil, urging him to follow, but Neil ignored him in favor of listening to the remaining bits of conversation.

Moira watched the men disappear into the locker room before turning to Wymack. For the first time since she stood up, Neil could see her face; her eyebrows pressed down, her mouth a tight line of worry. “I haven’t told them where we’ll be meeting.”

“I think they intend to come with you,” Wymack said. “If you want, you can wait here with Neil so I can get back to my team. Or do you want me to come along?”

The last question was directed at Neil, but Tierney stepped closer to answer. Neil felt that urge, fight or flight, burst through him harder and harder the closer she got. “You absolutely cannot tell any member of your team any of this. It is crucial to Moira’s continued safety that nobody outside of this meeting knows that she exists.”

“I understand that,” Wymack said, more sarcasm than anything, but Tierney gave a terse nod, satisfied.

“You can come if you want,” Moira said, lifting her hands to cross over her chest. Her fingers dug deep into her collarbones, hanging from them through her thin shirt. “But it’s not necessary. You should probably get back to your team, you know. Make sure they don’t come looking.”

“Right,” Wymack said, glancing again at Neil. When Neil nodded, Wymack headed out toward the court with nothing more than a glance to Moira. The girl seemed unfazed, shifting her gaze to some corner of the room.

Once Wymack was gone, Neil glanced at Tierney, and was unhappily surprised to find the fierce woman staring back at him. He shifted his notes in his lap and remembered the UT game, still playing in the background. He switched the TV off and tossed his notes to the side, and he couldn’t tell if the feeling brewing in his gut was anxiety or a rare gladness that he finally had a better excuse than Andrew’s enigmatic behavior to focus his mind away from Exy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even though it's trash, please tell me what you think! And if anyone is Irish and would like to give me some tips about how Irish people speak, that'd be awesome! (The only knowledge I have is from watching a few YouTube videos, and that's obviously not enough lol)

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fanfiction that I've ever written, and I don't read fanfiction very often so if I do something wrong on the site or whatever please let me know so I can be better.
> 
> As for the writing, please leave a comment to tell me what you think! I absolutely love any and all feedback. I'll be honest and admit that I don't usually finish things, and since this is my first fanfiction ever I don't know if there's much to expect, but if people like it and let me know then there's a better chance that I'll continue.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading! <3


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